How to Avoid Flight Delays

ByBarbara Benham

Tired of waiting in the wings?Though most delays can be blamed on the (bad) luck of the draw, there are a few ways to increase your chances of an on-time arrival. Barbara Benham reports. Plus T+L charts the best (and worst) U.S. airports

Flight delays, the bane of every flier’s existence, are back with a vengeance. After declining significantly in the post-9/11 air-travel drop-off, late arrivals have been approaching record levels as more people—and more carriers—take to the skies. Air travel this year could reach an all-time high. This means more flights and, in a long-established correlation, more delays. How bad have things gotten?For the first half of this year, one in five flights arrived 15 or more minutes behind schedule.

How this will play out over the busy holiday travel season will depend largely on Mother Nature. Extreme weather can cripple the system. According to data from the Air Transport Association, weather is responsible for as many as two-thirds of all delayed flights. Just under one-third were due to air-carrier delays, such as maintenance or crew issues, which are matters the airlines control. Interestingly, less than one percent of delays were due to security reasons. That slice of the pie could increase if security alerts—and their attendant measures—remain high through the second half of the year.

So what’s an air traveler to do?Try to avoid times with potential for bad weather, such as early morning in the Pacific Northwest, for fog, and late afternoon in the East, for summer storms. Book intelligently: be aware of flights and airports with bad track records. Ask the reservationist for the flight’s on-time record (Congress requires that airlines provide it), or visit the Bureau of Transportation Statistics Web site (www.bts.gov), which has a searchable table of on-time records. Finally, assume you might be delayed, and don’t book too close to an important event. Like a cruise departure. Or Thanksgiving dinner.

When it comes to dealing with congestion, not all airports are created equal. Above are the 10 major domestic airports with the highest percentage of delayed departures, along with their smoother-sailing counterparts. To help you plan your flights, we’ve given you the hours at each when delays are at their peak.* It’s worth noting that even at the best airports, delays spike at certain hours, usually between 7 and 10 p.m. The best times to fly are in the mornings and after 11 p.m., when the evening rush is over.

Best

Charlotte Douglas20%8–9 p.m. 41%

Cincinnati14%5–6 p.m. 23%

Houston George Bush20%6–7 p.m. 31%

Los Angeles18%7–8 p.m. 27%

Orlando19%11 p.m.–12 a.m. 46%

Pittsburgh17%7–8 p.m. 36%

Salt Lake City14%6–7 p.m. 19%

San Diego17%8–9 p.m. 27%

Tampa18%9–10 p.m. 37%

Washington Reagan16%7–8 p.m. 27%

Worst

Atlanta26%9–10 p.m. 40%

Chicago Midway27%8–9 p.m. 45%

Chicago O’Hare28%8–9 p.m. 41%

Dallas-Fort Worth23%7–8 p.m. 32%

Detroit Metro Wayne County22%8–9 p.m. 40%

Las Vegas McCarran25%9–10 p.m. 39%

Miami23%9–10 p.m. 36%

Newark28%7–8 p.m. 53%

New York LaGuardia24%9–10 p.m. 40%

Philadelphia26%7–8 p.m. 42%

% Percentage of all departures that are delayed

* A flight departing 15 minutes or more after the scheduled departure time is considered delayed. Figures are from August 2005 through July 2006 and are provided by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Here, our latest inductees into T+L’s flight-delay Hall of Fame and Shame. Although the overall percentage of delayed departures for most airlines is between 15 and 25 percent, at individual airports these figures can either skyrocket or plummet. So we’ve given you the least and most efficient combinations of airlines and airports. Also below: a look at the domestic flights with the worst on-time arrival records this year, and five other popular routes that are frequently delayed.

Top Carrier Of the 50 best-performing flights for on-time arrivals over the past year, 48 are on Hawaiian Airlines. Two flights, No. 103 from Honolulu to Lihue and No. 104 from Lihue to Honolulu, have 100 percent on-time arrival records.